Flowers of Despair
by The Lady Avaritia
Summary: She may have stilled loved Draco, when she first kissed Harry as he came back. But she loved Harry just a tad bit more. Harry/Ginny/Draco triangle for the Out of Your Comfort Zone Challenge on the HPFFC forums.


For Ginny it had always been Harry, regardless of all, and it would've never been anyone else. So what if she had strayed form the path one time? She couldn't have been expected to be faithful, to wait for him, not when he'd promised nothing, or spoken a word.

And while he was away, too busy saving all of them, she saved one person, and she felt guilty about it later.

He was the most dangerous boy she had ever met, he was more dangerous than any of the Death Eaters he associated with, because, above all, Draco was very, very intelligent, and very, very afraid. She used to be scared of him, at first, scared of his unusual light eyes, like clouds before a storm, scared of the way his upper lip would twitch in a sneer, scared of the way his left hand's fingers would involuntarily clench when he was angry…

He was bad, bad to the bone, with not a single good intention to spare, not to her, at least. He was selfish, and spoilt, and lonely, oh, so lonely.

He kissed her first during that doomed to fall school year of 1998, behind a statue. He shoved her into the rough gray stone, the cold chilling her to the bone, and crashed his full lips on hers. He tasted like tobacco, and she did not know where the taste had come from, because smoking was prohibited.

It had all been, of course, an act of unbelievably, shocking chivalry on his part, as he happened to do it just as Alecto Carrow was passing down the hall, and Ginny was returning to her dorm way past curfew after a DA meeting.

But Draco was a Head Boy, and as such, was allowed to snog whomever he liked in empty halls regardless of the hour.

He was an amazing kisser, what with all the practice he'd had (and rumor went around that he'd lost his virginity in his third year with Pansy Parkinson) with boys and girls from all around the school.

It was only so much she could do not to melt into his strong arms, as he pulled away from her, leaving her light-headed, dazed.

They met again, after that, at random, and he was always silver and ivory and beautiful and impossibly far from her, with his cold icy eyes and aching left arm. He would grab her, and snog her until she saw stars, and then he'd take her up in his arms, briefly, shortly.

Did she feel guilty for being with Harry's enemy while Harry himself was Merlin-knows-where doing Merlin-knows-what to save them all? Oh, yes, yes she did.

It didn't stop her, though, from taking it a step further, one night, in the prefect's bathrooms, where the current password was "pureblood". He kissed her almost desperately, that night, and his skin looked ashy, and his eyes looked bruised, so she wrapped her little warm around him, tried to warm him with her Gryffindor fire, because, Merlin, he was so cold.

His pale elegant hands trace her body through her robes, then slip under her shirt, his long fingers find the clasp of her bra. For the first time, she protests.

"We can't."

"I know," he says. "I _know_—"

He kisses her again, and she can feel him shivering under her, and she looks into his eyes, large and stormy, and oh, so, afraid, Merlin, he is so afraid, and he is so alone, like a fallen prince whose subjects have turned on him

"This is not how adults behave," she whispers, against his neck, then kisses the soft skin there, and slips her small hands from around his slender waist towards his tie, and then quickly deals with the buttons of his crisp white shirt.

And, oh, Merlin, she is so guilty, she is, but Harry and her are not together right now, not officially, and Draco is handsome and dangerous and desperate, and he looks so beautiful, sprawled on his bed in the Head Boy quarters, among the emerald sheets, as his moon-white skin and platinum hair almost spill a transparent pearly glow in the darkness about him, and the dark mark on his chalky flesh is like an ugly open wound, the black ink a stark contrast to the milky pallor of his otherwise unmarred skin, as the snake ripples underneath his skin, twists almost painfully over the bone, and she stares on, mesmerized.

Some nights, in his sleep, he _screams_.

But then everything goes down, and the Carrows go up, and she has to hide, with the rest of the resistance, and she wonders if he's still like that, gray and soft, and alone and scared, and oh, so, dangerous.

She doesn't get to know until the final battle, and she doesn't see him until the eighth year, which is technically, her seventh, with the curriculum from the wasted sixth.

And that's when Harry is back, and he's grown too, and he's dangerous in all the ways Draco isn't, because Harry is gentle and kind, and so, so brimming with good intentions that he scares her a little too. He kisses differently, softly, gently, and he holds her like she's made of porcelain, and it takes him a whole lot longer than Draco to make his first move, because he's just a whole lot more gentlemanly, and unafraid, and not-desperate.

He is beautiful too, his skin is just as pale, and it looks even paler, compared to the blackness of his hair, which looks like a spill of liquefied darkness, and his eyes are much brighter, an alluring, overwhelming green which smiles at her from behind round glasses, when he sees her.

He screams in his sleep too, and he throws around, and flails his limbs… Draco was not like that. Regardless of how terrified he was in the trap of his subconscious, he never did something as undignified as flail around. He bit pillows, though. He bit pillows a lot, if only to silence himself. And he told her not to stay the night, so she could get sleep.

Harry clung to her. Harry told her not to stay the nights too, but he gave her a look like a kicked lost puppy, and she knew he did not mean it. His eyes, green and telling, begged her to stay and hold him. So she did.

She loved Harry. She had always loved Harry. He was the One for her, since she'd been a little girl. He was good for her.

He was an open book, something well-worn, cozy and comforting. Draco, Draco had been a challenge, a dare to herself, all sharp glassy edges, and daddy issues and badness, he was the worst.

And yes, she may have loved him a little, right there, at the very end, when he told her how he'd been Crucio-ed by his aunt Bellatrix, and how his parents were prisoners in their own home and how he just wanted this all to be over… She may have stilled loved him, when she first kissed Harry as he came back. But she loved Harry just a tad bit more.

And, from the strong arms of the dark-haired boy, who had become a hero, a savior, a messiah, but not a man, she watched the other one, who had taken gracefully the hard fall, dusted off and moved on, and she wondered, had things been different, would she have still chosen Harry?

~x~

Draco told her that he loved her only once, and never repeated it.

'I love you,' he'd whispered against her neck, 'when you're like that, tonight, I love you.'

'What about tomorrow,' she asked, and leaned into his touch a little more.

'Tomorrow doesn't matter.'


End file.
